Periscope (service)
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Periscope was an American live
video streaming Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typical static broadcasting ...
app for Android and
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developed by Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein and acquired by
Twitter, Inc. Twitter, Inc. was an American social media company based in San Francisco, California, which operated and was named for its flagship social media network prior to its rebrand as X. In addition to Twitter, the company previously operated the V ...
before its launch in March 2015. The service was discontinued on 31 March 2021 due to declining usage, product realignment, and high maintenance costs. However, Periscope videos can still be watched via
Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
, now called X, and most of its core features are now incorporated into the app.


History

Beykpour and Bernstein came up with the idea for Periscope while traveling abroad in 2013. Beykpour was in
Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
when protests broke out in Taksim Square. He wanted to see what was happening there, so he turned to Twitter. While he could read about the protests, he could not see them. They started the company in February 2014, under the name Bounty. They raised $1.5 million from Founder Collective, Scott Belsky,
Maveron Maveron is an American venture capital firm that invests in consumer-only and early-stage companies, with offices in Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California. The firm was co-founded by Dan Levitan and former Starbucks chief executive ...
, Google Ventures,
Menlo Ventures Menlo Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California with an additional office in San Francisco, California. The firm was founded as one of the earliest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley in 1976 and provides technology ...
, Bessemer, Stanford – StartX and Sam Shank in April 2014. Periscope was acquired January 2015 by Twitter before the product had been publicly launched. One investor source says the acquisition amount was "sizeable", above $50 million. Another says it fell between $75 and $100 million. A third says the deal was "small-ish". The acquisition was officially announced in a tweet from Periscope and retweeted by Twitter CEO
Dick Costolo Richard William Costolo (pronounced: ) (born September 10, 1963) is an American businessman. He was the CEO of Twitter, Inc. from 2010 to 2015; he also served as the COO before becoming CEO. Career Costolo was born in Royal Oak, Michigan. In 1 ...
on 13 March after the rival video streaming app
Meerkat The meerkat (''Suricata suricatta'') or suricate is a small mongoose found in southern Africa. It is characterised by a broad head, large eyes, a pointed snout, long legs, a thin tapering tail, and a brindled coat pattern. The head-and-body ...
was a breakout hit at
South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...
2015 (13–17 March). Meerkat became the talk of SXSW partially due to Twitter cutting Meerkat off from its
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just as the festival was starting. Periscope was launched on 26 March 2015. Later, on 26 May 2015, Periscope was released for Android. On 12 August 2015, Periscope announced that it had surpassed 10 million accounts, four months after it was launched. At the same time, the company noted that the amount of video being watched had reached a level of "40 years per day". On 9 December 2015, Apple named Periscope as the iPhone App of the Year. On 26 January 2016, the company released an update that allows users to stream live from
GoPro GoPro, Inc. (marketed as GoPro and sometimes stylized as GoPRO) is an American technology company founded in 2002 by Nick Woodman. It manufactures action cameras and develops its own mobile apps and video editing software, video-editing software ...
. In December 2016, some of Periscope's features were integrated into the
Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
app. In April 2016, as part of a wider partnership with Twitter to stream selected ''
Thursday Night Football ''Thursday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''TNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time (8:20 prior to ...
'' games, the
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announced that Periscope would feature ancillary behind the scenes content from these games. In June 2016, Democratic members of the
U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...
staged a sit-in on the House floor to protest the lack of a vote on a gun control bill. The Speaker pro tem, Rep.
Ted Poe Lloyd Theodore Poe (born September 10, 1948) is an American politician who represented Texas's 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2005 to 2019. Poe was the first Republican Party (United States), Republi ...
, declared the House was in recess and subsequently the House video feed to
C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...
was shut off. However, after a brief interruption, C-SPAN was able to broadcast the sit-in because Rep. Scott Peters streamed the activity and the speakers using his Periscope account. On 12 June 2018, a Turkish court banned Periscope in Turkey for violating the copyright of the Turkish company called Periskop. Periscope had been actively used by the Turkish opposition until an initial ban was put in place in April 2017, weeks before a constitutional referendum to expand presidential powers.


Service

The services of Periscope were available in the mobile application itself as well as on Twitter. Users of Periscope were able to choose whether or not to make their video public or simply viewable to certain users such as their friends or families. Although the "scoper" usually used a handheld device such as a smartphone to broadcast, it was also possible to broadcast through Periscope using a professional vision mixing suite such as
Wirecast Wirecast is a live video streaming production tool by Telestream. It allows users to create live or on-demand broadcasts for the web. Wirecast is a software video switcher, controlling real-time switching between multiple live video cameras, wh ...
or Teradek using Periscope Pro. On 10 September 2015, Periscope added the ability to broadcast live in landscape view. .Periscope's innovative live-streaming technology not only redefined real-time engagement but also paved the way for integrating live video features directly into social media platforms like Twitter, now X. Periscope allowed viewers to send "hearts" to the broadcaster by tapping on the mobile screen as a form of appreciation. The maximum number of users that a user could follow is 8,000. On 8 September 2015,
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reported and later confirmed that Periscope was building an
Apple TV Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...
app. This app was released on 30 October 2015.


Copyright issues

The app could be misappropriated for
copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...
, an issue that was raised around the time of the app's launch when several users of the service used it to air the fifth-season premiere of
HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
's ''
Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American Fantasy television, fantasy Drama (film and television), drama television series created by David Benioff and for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of high fantasy novels by ...
'' live. HBO stated that the service needed better tools and policies to deal with copyrighted content. These issues were magnified further by a
professional boxing Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional fights are supervised by a regulatory auth ...
event on 2 May 2015,
Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao, billed as the ''Fight of the Century'' or the ''Battle for Greatness'', was a professional boxing match between undefeated five-division world champion and WBA (Unified), WBC, and ''The Ring'' welterwe ...
, which was televised via a
pay per view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program ...
that cost approximately US$90, but saw wide unauthorised distribution through streams of various quality on Periscope. Rebroadcasting copyrighted content violates Periscope's written terms of service, and could result in suspension or banning the offending account. Other complaints came from firms acting on behalf of the
NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...
, the
Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...
, the US Open Tennis Championship, and
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, according to data from
Chilling Effects Lumen, formerly Chilling Effects, is an American collaborative archive created by Wendy Seltzer and operated by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. It allows recipients of cease-and-desist notices to submit ...
, which tracks online takedown notices and was started by an attorney
Wendy Seltzer Wendy Seltzer is an American attorney and, as of January 2023, a staff member at Tucows where she is the Principal Identity Architect. She is known for her many years of work with the World Wide Web Consortium, where, among many roles, she was t ...
, several law school clinics and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...
. The
Ultimate Fighting Championship The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promoter (entertainment), promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings, a majority owned subsidiary of Endeavor ( ...
, which kept a close eye on people it believes are illegally streaming its pay per view mixed martial arts matches, sent more than 650 takedown notices to Periscope, according to data from Chilling Effects.


Discontinuation

The services of Periscope were scheduled to end in March 2021. The decision was made as a result of the app's declining popularity over time as other social media platforms with similar live-streaming capabilities gained traction. Periscope was removed from its respective stores in Android and iOS on 31 March 2021. However, the videos of the service can still be watched via Twitter, as most of its features are now incorporated into the app. The app has had concerns with safety and moderation, as well as competition from bigger platforms like Facebook Live and Instagram Live. Periscope failed to reclaim its market share despite attempts to enhance its functionality and user interface. In 2023, Twitter CEO
Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...
streamed from his Twitter account, saying he was using "2015 Periscope code," and "we're just testing the live video feature so we can see if it works, and we can modify it accordingly".


References


External links

*
Periscope
at
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